L'imprécateur

There are lost masterpieces or hidden gems, but there is no such thing as a forgotten excellent movie. Hidden gems may have been overlooked in their time but they are rediscovered and regularly pop up on the enthusiast's radar, especially in the age of internet with algorithms that automates suggestions. Aside from this people can have a sweet spot for flawed movies, they connect with the project of the movie, be it innovative endeavour, narrative strength, pure nostalgia, silly slapstick etc. But they acknowledge it is something more personal because the movie is flawed at heart.

There is nothing of the sort here. Sure you want a movie with such a stellar cast to be good, and although I was dubious this movie would be able to stun me - especially after the dumb opening credits, very lame helicopter shots of Manhattan's WTC twin towers; seriously, if you can't find a simple creative idea to set the tone, just put the credits over a prologue - I also wanted to enjoy great scenes with those fantastic actors: Yanne, Piccoli, Marielle, Brially, Lonsdale. But try as I might I cannot remember one good bit. Simply because these great actors are only barely staying afoot in this quagmire of a movie.

It is painful because every time you hope the narration will show some depth, build a suspense, or just show off with dialogue fireworks, it fizzles. L'Imprécateur is way below mediocre because it simply does not know what story it is telling. Why not focus on a conspiracy thriller? There were so many good examples to emulate at the time. I guess they felt too clever and wanted to add a heavy satirical layer, which precisely fissures the whole contraption.

In the end this is a very sad example of poor moviemaking skills. Dehumanized, contrived... ironically this is exactly what the movie wants to criticize inside global corporations. And its fatal mistake is to want to illustrate some kind of fight between French common sense/savoir-vivre and American runaway greed. So full of it. Jean Yanne seems to be the main character as the HR director but who knows, the script is actually crowded with too many prominent cooks so his part ends up so diluted that we hardly know where the director wants us to go.

Eventually the ending is so much worse that it is almost unbelievable! But by that time your brain has long stopped expecting anything good and rightfully starts to erase the whole experience.

That's a french film hardly known even in France but it's an astounding "avant-garde" dark satire about worldwide company executives.

It's also gathers a great cast : The late Jean Yanne (of one the best french actor of the past thirty years) and Michel Piccoli as the deranged, though respected, big boss of "Rosery and Mitchell's".

On my knowledge, the film was broadcast a few times on french television since his theatrical release. I saw it once in 83 and, recently on the cable. The film was released on VHS in the early eighties. Try to get a copy !

For the record, The film, shot in 1977, opens on a view of the World trade center in NYC and ends the falling down of a big corporation building in Paris.

David

As was LA GRANDE BOUFFE, several years earlier and also a social satyre of the modern consumierism society and its search for a meaning in life and excess of all kinds, this movie explores the lethal side effects of capitalism and the greedy, ruthless and inhuman multinationals for the modern world. This story is totally deplaced, offbeat, weird but facsinating. It uses the metaphor tool which works so much. It is so efficient, especially starring the likes of Michel Piccoli, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Yanne; all great specialists for this kind of f...up French films of this crazy period, today totally lost, forgotten. But this movie remains disturbing, a real gem for me. However not for all audiences.